How to Put Into Practice
Writing your assessments from the perspective of a student helps increase transparency regarding what they are expected to do, how they are expected to do it, and provides a scaffold to help students succeed.
To systematically view your assessments from the student perspective, you can use an evidence-based pedagogical framework called Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) from TILT Higher Ed. TILT reduces systemic inequities and boosts student success by structuring assignment instructions around three core pillars:
- Purpose: Why the student is doing the assignment and what skills or knowledge they will gain.
- Task: What specific, step-by-step actions the student needs to take.
- Criteria: How the student can evaluate their work and recognize successful outcomes.
The following general principles help ensure your directions are not only clear but inclusive and motivating for your students:
- Make expectations explicit
- Be consistent
- Build student investment
- Provide support
- Clarify Generative AI usage limits (e.g., fully permitted, permitted with citation, or completely prohibited).
Additionally, inviting someone to review your instructions and provide feedback can help to ensure that your writing is efficient and your meaning is clear.
After each description below, a set of questions are provided to help you think about your assignment from the student perspective. As you draft your instructions, ask yourself these questions, and revise your steps and descriptions to make sure they are addressed.
Make expectations explicit
Making implicit rules explicit helps all students show their best work when completing college-level assignments. Ambiguous instructions, or those that rely on implicit understanding, can reinforce a range of inequities. When directions are unclear, certain students carry advantages: students who attended schools where all subjects were taught in English, students from dominant social groups, and students whose parents have attended college may be more able to intuit what the instructor wants, leading them to higher performance in the assignment.
In the TILT framework, making expectations explicit corresponds directly to the task. Instructors often operate with expert blind spots, assuming students inherently know the baseline steps of an assignment. Defining the task means explicitly laying out a clear, chronological roadmap of the actions students must perform, including boundaries for collaboration and clear parameters for tool usage.
The questions below will help you think through your instructions from a students’ perspective, leading to greater clarity.
- What am I expected to do?
- What steps will I need to take?
- How can I do it (format of assignment, parameters for group/individual work)?
- Are there any rules & expectations I need to follow (file naming, file format, text format, margins, font, word count)?
- What is the AI policy for this task? If allowed, how must I document or cite its help?
- How do I submit my work?
- When am I supposed to do it?
- When is the assignment due?
- How long will it take?
- How can I judge when I’m done?
- What are the penalties if I am late?
- How will my work be assessed?
- What criteria will be used (i.e., what is the rubric)?
- What is the grade scheme?
- How and when will I receive feedback?
- What should I do with the feedback I receive?
The “Criteria for Success” pillar: visualizing quality
Transparent assignment design requires that students understand the criteria for success before they begin working. Beyond just providing a rubric or grading scheme, expectations can be clarified by providing annotated examples of past student work (both high and low quality) or offering a self-assessment checklist. This allows students to evaluate their own progress and self-correct before submitting a final draft.
Be consistent
Using a consistent structure and style across assignments increases students’ confidence and supports learning. When completing assignments, students are not only engaging with course content but also learning how to perform the different tasks themselves. If you think of related assignments as a series of steps and build them consistently, it allows you to set progressively more complex expectations without adding unnecessary difficulty in understanding the instructions.
- Have I done a task like this before?
- What parts are the same?
- What parts are different?
- What helped me be successful before?
- How does this relate to previous assignments in this or other courses?
- What did I learn from previous assignments that can be incorporated here?
- How can I build on the feedback from my previous assignments?
Build student investment
Along with explaining how to satisfy expectations, addressing the “why” is equally important. Providing a justification and linking assignments to measurable learning outcomes can lead to greater motivation and investment. When students understand that an assignment is designed to build cognitive skills that AI cannot reproduce, such as critical empathy or complex synthesis, they are more likely to be personally invested in doing the work themselves. In your directions, clearly link what students are learning to real-world problems, skills, or professional practices to underpin relevance and increase motivation.
The “Purpose” Pillar: fostering motivation and integrity
Aligning with TILT, this section focuses on the purpose of the assessment. Clearly articulating the “why” behind a task helps students connect their academic efforts to real-world career skills and broader course objectives. In an environment where generative AI is easily accessible, a transparently stated purpose establishes a human-centered motivation for the assignment. When students understand that the work is designed to build cognitive skills like critical empathy or complex synthesis, they are more likely to see the value in doing the work themselves.
- How does this address a stated course learning objective?
- What skills can I expect to develop as a result of completing this assignment?
- How does this assignment prepare me for future classes or a career?
- How does it fit into the rest of the course and my overall learning?
- How does this connect to other assignments and assessments?
- Will this be in a test?
Provide support
Another important part of building students’ confidence is providing a range of additional support. This can mean clarifying what tools or websites are allowed; connecting students with services such as the libraries or software training; suggesting ways of seeking extra practice or extra credit; or providing a model of a completed response to review.
- How do I know I’m doing the right thing at the right pace?
- Can I see a template or a model?
- Can I submit a draft for feedback?
- How will I receive updates about the assignment?
- Will I be supported when I struggle?
- What support am I permitted / not permitted to use (e.g., partner, book, online tools, or AI content generators)?
- Where can I get help?
- Who should I ask when I have questions? (TA, Lead Instructor, Course Helpdesk…)?
- What should I do if I need an accommodation, extension, or exception?
Alternatives and supplements to written instructions
In addition to written instructions, some instructors record short videos to explain expectations. It can also be beneficial to provide models of student work, step-by-step examples, walk-throughs, and clear guidance on where students can go for help when needed.
See AI statements for course syllabi (University of Wisconsin-Madison) for specific institutional examples of how to frame standard, tiered language, regarding student parameters for AI tools within written assignment directions. See How to Craft an AI Policy for Your Classroom for considerations to help you craft an AI policy for your classroom (OneHE membership is required to review. A 10-day free trial is available for new members.)
The Quick TILT Audit
Before publishing any assignment prompt or document, run it through this quick three-step check to ensure maximum clarity and inclusivity:
- Criteria: have I provided a detailed rubric, checklist, or annotated model so students understand what a successful submission looks like?
- Purpose: have I explicitly stated the specific learning outcomes, transferable skills, and real-world relevance of this task?
- Task: is there a clear, numbered sequence of actions instructing students exactly what to do and what boundaries, such as AI usage policies, they must operate within?